April 30, 2009

The principle reason I’ve written the “Advice for Debating William Lane Craig” series of posts (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5, or you can click on the “Advice for Debating…” tag) is to help spread the word about common debate techniques with which Christians seem (to me, at least) to be more familiar and better equipped to use. My goal is that when we atheists trot out our “big guns,” that everyone who watches the debate walks away with at least a healthy respect for the atheist performance.Read the rest of this entry »

April 25, 2009

You can find the previous posts in this series here: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, andPart 4, or you can click on the “Advice for Debating…” tag.

1. One of the most important things you should be doing to prepare for any kind of formal debate — and I can’t believe I didn’t mention this earlier — is to practice debating the other side. Atheists, that means you should find the best debater you know (other than yourself) and set up a practice round in which they come in with a case for atheism that you haven’t seen, and you play the role of William Lane Craig.Read the rest of this entry »

As with John Loftus’s response, I find myself puzzled by Hallquist’s overall evaluation — here, he says that my advice is “somewhat misguided.” This is strange, since as far as I can tell, Hallquist and I agree on virtually everything I said! Let’s take a look:Read the rest of this entry »

April 16, 2009

If you’re looking for a specific atheist debate, check out Luke’s excellent archive of 400+ debates (in both video and audio format where available) that relate to atheism/theism issues. It is without question the most comprehensive such list on the Internet; if he doesn’t have it, my guess is that it’s not available online. A great resource, and while you’re at it, check out the rest of his site, Common Sense Atheism.

I continue to be stumped — even angry — when the supposed “leading lights” of the Christian apologetics movements (Strobel, Craig) can repeat obvious scientific falsehoods with a straight face. Make whatever argument you want, but when you stand in front of several hundred people and affirm that “information in DNA requires an intelligent source,” you are spouting nonsense at best and outright lies at worst. I’m shocked more Christians don’t disavow these sorts of tactics.